the triumph of faith over sight, of spirit over matter, of grace over nature, and of the Church over the world. But somehow our very disappointment causes us to feel more touchingly the gift of faith, and the sense of our own unworthiness, which makes it such a wonder that God should have elected us to so great a gift.

3. Oh, sweet Sacrament of Love! we belong to thee, for thou art our Living Love himself. Thou art our well of life, for in thee is the Divine Life himself-immeasurable, compassionate, eternal. To-day is thy day, and on it there shall not be a single thought, a single hope, a single wish, which shall not be all for thee!

4. Now the first thing we have to do is to get the spirit of the Feast into us. When this is once accomplished, we shall be better able to sound some of the depths of this salutary mystery. Nay, the whole theology of the grand dogma of the Eucharist is nothing less than angelic music made audible to mortal ears; and when our souls are attuned to it we shall the better understand the sweet secrets which it reveals to our delighted minds.

5. But we must go far away in order to catch the spirit of the Feast. We must put before ourselves, as on a map, the aspect which the whole Church is presenting to the eye of God to-day. Our great city is deafened with her own noise; she cannot hear. She is blinded with her own dazzle; she canno see. We must not mind her; we must put the thoughts of her away, with sadness if it were any other day than this, but to-day, because it is to-day, with complete indifference.

6. Oh, the joy of the immense glory the Church is sending up to God this hour, verily, as if the world was all unfallen still! We think, and as we think, the thoughts are like so many Buccessive tide-waves, filling our whole souls with the fulnes cf delight, of all the thousands of masses which are being aid or sung the whole world over, and all rising with one note of blissful acclamation from grateful creatures to the Majesty of our merciful Creator.

7. How many glorious processions, with the sun upon their banners, are now winding their way round the squares of mighty cities, through the flower-strewn streets of Christian

villages, through the antique cloisters of the glorious cathedral, or through the grounds of the devout seminary, where the various colors of the faces, and the different languages of the people, are only so many fresh tokens of the unity of that faith which they are all exultingly professing in the single voice of the magnificent ritual of Rome !

8. Upon how many altars of various architecture, amid sweet flowers and starry lights, amid clouds of humble incense, and the tumult of thrilling song, before thousands of prostrate worshippers, is the blessed sacrament raised for exposition, or taken down for benediction ! And how many blessed acts of faith and love, of triumph and of reparation, do not each of these things surely represent !

9. The world over, the summer air is filled with the voice of song. The gardens are shorn of their fairest blossoms, to be flung beneath the feet of the Sacramental God. The steeples are reeling with the clang of bells; the cannon are booming in the gorges of the Andes and the Apennines; the ships of the harbors are painting the bays of the sea with their show of gaudy flags; the pomp of royal or republican armies salutes the King of kings.

10. The Pope on his throne, and the school-girl in her village, cloistered nuns and sequestered hermits, bishops and dignitaries and preachers, emperors and kings and princes, are all engrossed to-day with the Blessed Sacrament. Cities are illuminated; the dwellings of men are alive with exultation. 11. Joy so abounds, that men rejoice they know not why; and their joy overflows on sad hearts, and on the poor and the imprisoned and the wandering and the orphaned and the homesick exiles. All the millions of souls that belong to th royal family and spiritual lineage of St. Peter, are to-day en gaged, more or less, with the Blessed Sacrament, so that the whole Church militant is thrilling with glad emotion, like the tremulous rocking of the mighty sea. Sin seems forgotten; tears even are of rapture rather than of penance. It is like the soul's first day in heaven, or as if earth itself were passing into heaven, as it well might do, for sheer joy of the Blessed Sacrament.

25. THE BLIND MARTYR.

CARDINAL WISEMAN.

His Em nence CARDINAL WISEMAN, the first Archbishop of Wertminster, was born at Seville, in Spain, of Irish parents, August 2, 1802. He was rdained priest in 1825, and was for some years Rector of the English Col ege at Rome. He was elevated to the episcopate in 1840, being made Co djutor to Dr. Walsh, Vicar Apostolic of the Midland District. In 1848, e was made Pro-Vicar Apostolic of the London District, on the death o Dr. Griffiths; and subsequently, Vicar Apostolic. On the 29th of Septem ber, 1850, his Holiness Pope Pius IX. re-established the Catholic Hierarchy in England, when Dr. Wiseman was made Archbishop of the new See of Westminster; and on the following day he was raised to the dignity of a Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church.

"Few of the great men of our day will, in the pages of Church history, occupy a more conspicuous place than Cardinal Wiseman, as a learned and brilliant controversialist, or as a writer abounding in erudition, a knowledge of the Oriental languages, manners, and customs, the life of the primitive Christians, and all their remains, as well as in a thorough knowledge alike of theology, and of the times in which he lived. His Lectures on Revealed Religion are acknowledged to be the best and most complete answer in the language to the infidel doctrines of the day."- Metropolitan.

These form but a small portion of his learned labors. We give below an extract from his unequalled tale of "Fabiola," the scene of which is laid in Roine during the reign of the tyrant Diocletian.

[Cecelia, a poor, blind young girl, warns the Christians, who had assembled in the Catacombs to assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, that they have been betrayed to the Prefect of Rome.]

1. CECELIA, already forewarned, had approached the cemetery by a different but neighboring entrance. No sooner had she descended than she snuffed the strong odor of the torches. "This is none of our incense, I know," she said to herself; "the enemy is already within." She hastened, therefore, to the place of assembly, and delivered Sebastian's note; adding also what she had observed. It warned them to disperse, and seek the shelter of the inner and lower galleries; and begged of the Pontiff not to leave till he should send for him, as his person was particularly sought for.

2. Pancratius urged the blind messenger to save herself oo. "No," she replied, "my office is to watch the door, and guide the faithful safe."

"But the enery may seize you."

"No matter," she answered, laughing; "my being taken may save much worthier lives. Give me a lamp, Pancra tius."

3. "Why, you cannot see by it," observed he, smiling. “Truз; but others can."

"They may be your enemies."

"Even so," she answered; "I do not wish to be taken in the dark. If my Bridegroom come to me in the night of this cemetery, must he not find me with my lamp trimmed ?"

Off she started, reached her post, and hearing no noise ex cept that of quiet footsteps, she thought they were those of friends, and held up her lamp to guide them.

4. When the party came forth, with their only captive, Fulvius was perfectly furious. It was more than a total failure —it was ridiculous-a poor mouse come out of the bowels of the earth. He rallied Corvinus till the wretch winced and foamed; then suddenly he asked, "And where is Torquatus?" He heard the account of his sudden disappearance, told in as many ways as the Dacian guards' adventures; but it annoyed him greatly. He had no doubt, whatever, in his own mind, that he had been duped by his supposed victim, who had escaped into the unsearchable mazes of the cemetery. If so, this captive would know, and he determined to question her. He stood before her, therefore, put on his most searching and awful look, and said to her, sternly, "Look at me, woman, and tell me the truth."

5. "I must tell you the truth without looking at you, sir,” answered the poor girl, with her cheerfulest smile, and softest voice; "do you not see that I am blind?"

"Blind !" all exclaimed at once, as they crowded to look at her. But over the features of Fulvius there passed the slightest possible emotion, just as much as the wave that runs, pursued by a playful breeze, over the ripe meadow. knowledge had flashed into his mind, a clue had fallen into his hands.

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6. "It will be ridiculous," he said, "for twenty soldiers to march through the city, guarding a blind girl. Return to your quarters, and I will see you are well rewarded. You, Corvinus, take my horse, and go before to your father, and tell him all. I will follow in a carriage with the captive."

"No treachery, Fulvius," he said, vexed and mortified.

7. "Mind you bring her. The day must not pass without a sacrifice."

"Do not fear," was the reply.

Fulvius, indeed, was pondering whether, having lost one spy, he should not try to make another. But the calm gentleness of the poor beggar perplexed him more than the boister ous zeal of the gamester, and her sightless orbs defied him more than the restless roll of the toper's; still, the first thought that had struck him he could still pursue. When alone in a carriage with her, he assumed a soothing tone, and addressed her. He knew she had not overheard the last dialogue.

"My poor girl," he said, "how long have you been blind?' 8. "All my life," she replied.

"What is your history? Whence do you come ?"

"I have no history. My parents were poor, and brought me to Rome, when I was four years old, as they came to pray, in discharge of a vow made for my life in early sickness, to the blessed martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria. They left me in charge of a pious lame woman, at the door of the title of Fasciola, while they went to their devotions. It was on that memorable day when many Christians were buried at the tomb, by earth and stones cast down on them. My parents had the happiness to be among them."

9. "And how have you lived since ?"

"God became my only Father then, and his Catholic Church my Mother. The one feeds the birds of the air, the other nurses the weaklings of the flock. I have never wanted for any thing since."

"But you can walk about the streets freely and without fear, as well as if you saw."

"How do you know that?" 10. "I have seen you. Do you remember very early on morning in the autumn, leading a poor lame man along the Vicus Patricus ?"

She blushed and remained silent. Could he have seen her put into the poor old man's purse her own share of the alms! "You have owned yourself a Christian ?" he asked, negli gently.